One of my most treasured memories from one of our Sufi gatherings was the blessing of a practice from one of our senior teachers. She would gather us all in the forest and ask us to lie on the ground. We would all find a place and get comfortable. Then she would guide us through her practice, which she called STOP. I am pretty sure that was an acronym, but I’m unable to recall what it stood for, and it doesn’t matter. The point was to STOP!
I know firsthand how important and refreshing it has become to allow myself, and in fact to make it a priority, to stop, breathe, rest, and in the stillness, listen for that small quiet voice coming from my heart with guidance, encouragement, peace, and compassion.
In a post I read today from Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditations, there was a short excerpt from Tricia Hersey, the founder of The Nap Ministry, who critiques the “grind culture” engendered by capitalism and reminds us of our divine right to rest in body and mind. I deeply resonated with her words and share them here with all of you dear ones. I encourage you to find times and ways to STOP.
We are grind culture. Grind culture is our everyday behaviors, expectations, and engagements with each other and the world around us. We have been socialized, manipulated, and indoctrinated by everything in culture to believe the lies of grind culture. In order for a capitalist system to thrive, our false beliefs in productivity and labor must remain. We have internalized its teachings and become zombie-like in Spirit and exhausted in body. So we push ourselves and each other under the guise of being hyperproductive and efficient. From a very young age we begin the slow process of disconnecting from our bodies’ need to rest and are praised when we work ourselves to exhaustion….
Our bodies and Spirits do not belong to capitalism, no matter how it is theorized and presented. Our divinity secures this, and it is our right to claim this boldly. I’m not grinding ever. I trust the Creator and my Ancestors to always make space for my gifts and talents without needing to work myself into exhaustion…. [1]
Rest is as natural as breathing and waking up. Rest is part of our nature. Resting is about getting people back to their truest selves. To what they were before capitalism robbed you of your ability to just be. Rest is anything that slows you down enough to allow your body and mind to connect in the deepest way. We must be focus on knowing that our bodies and our worth are not connected to how many things we can check off a list. You can begin to create a “Not-To-Do-List” as you gain the energy to maintain healthy boundaries. Our opportunity to rest and reimagine rest is endless. There is always time to rest when we reimagine. [2]
[1] Tricia Hersey, Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto (Little, Brown Spark, 2022), 23, 28–29.
[2] Hersey, Rest Is Resistance, 82–83.
May you, dear friends, find that still, small space between, amidst the swirling, grinding chaos, and be held in the arms of the Divine to rest, recuperate, reground, and be renewed for the next work that needs to be done.
Alhamdulillah.
